He's flailing about, stuttering and fumbling for what to say. "When you fucking needed drums and amps, I'm the one who went out and got them for you!”
You gotta be kidding me. "That's producing? Look, you didn't arrange one thing. Not one. I came up with the vocal parts and harmonies. You know what? You're not getting producer credit.”
Finally, he just throws his hands up and goes, "You know what? Get the fuck out of my house!”
I couldn't believe this clown. "Are you serious? Alright, man.”
So, I packed my shit and Ryan came and picked me up. I was good with Ryan, until all this shit happened. He was just a little goonish, you know? He took me to his house, and was just tripping out that all this had happened.
I told Ryan, "Those are my masters in there. That's my music, my artwork. I want those masters.”
We were getting ready to mix. I mean, it was just started. And, now Mike wouldn't let me in to mix, and he was saying he wouldn't give me the tapes. So, we're driving back to the house, and Ryan is talking to this ass-clown on the phone.
Things chilled out that night.
The next day, we were trying to figure out what to do. I said, "Give me the disks, and I'm taking them back to California and mix them.”
Mike won't do it. Ryan comes on like, "He won't give them up, man".
I hung up the phone and called Mike. "Dude, I'm giving you one chance to give me my masters, then I'm calling the cops and we're coming up there.”
I left that on the answering machine. Forty-five minutes later, I'm on the computer in Ryan's home office, and I hear the door slam open *BLAM!*. It slams open, and I hear this, "You motherfucker!” I hear this loud yelling, and I'm going, "What the hell?”
I go walking out of the room where the computer's at, and lumbering down the hall is this 6'8" freak, Ryan, and he's flipping out. "Get your shit, get the fuck out!”
Great...here we go again.
He continues, "You fucking call his house and threatened him?”
"I want my tapes, Ryan! That's my music!” I was pretty passionate about the whole thing. "You're the record company, not the producer. Those are my tapes, and I want them right now!”
He had me get my shit and had his brother take me to the airport and drop me off. He told his brother to just "Drop him at the end of the block.” What a fucking cocksucker.
He never paid me the rest of my dough, AND put the record out. They kept the tapes and finished the mix without me. What the fuck am I going to do? He's in Connecticut. I'm in LA I was going to go bi-coastal on another lawsuit? Retain a lawyer there with a $10,000 a month tab? I didn't have the money, nor the wherewithal to go through another lawsuit.
So, I had to let the record come out. He said he was only going to print a few copies of it, and that was it. A lot of people liked that record, and have it. I don't know how many he printed. He said 3000, and he sold out of those.
And, that's how I rounded out 2003. Dealing with that nonsense. Lesson learned, right?
RATT did a short little stint with Vince Neil in 2004. Mostly fly outs, but that was about it.
It was and odd time, because we'd fly out on Thursday, do the gigs with Vince all weekend, signing autographs for fans, doing big shows, and living the rockstar life. Then we'd fly back home on Sunday. I'd then be up first thing Monday morning, doing closings, getting other peoples autographs.
Clients would spot me once in a while, which was always funny.
We'd be talking about various things. They'd ask me if this was my main job, and I'd tell them it was just a side gig. They'd find out who I was, and just flip out. I had people bring RATT records out of their back room and show them to me. They'd be pointing to my picture on the back of the album.
"Is that you, man?”
"Yeah, that's me!”
It was always a very big laugh, because these people would turn out to be HUGE RATT N Rollers. It was completely surreal for them to have one of their rock star idols sitting in their house or office and doing the closing paperwork on their new home.
Invariably, they would go, "What the hell happened, dude? Why are you here?”
It would take a few minutes to explain that the band was still working and touring, but this was just something to fill the gaps in time, you know? Most of them believed it!
It was a very strange, yet profitable point of my career.
I'd do five or six closing a day, on average. It was pretty trippy to get a look into these people lives. You'd find a contractor who makes $200,000 per month and lives in a giant house, and then the next guy would be an office guy who might make $40,000 per year.
It's interesting to see that cross section of American life.
In 2005, RATT went out on the Cinderella tour, so I had to put the closing job on the shelf for a while. It was a little upsetting, because I really had the thing dialed in. The agents and banks were getting used to using me, and I'd play the RATT card to get more work. If the scheduler was young, I'd always drop something like, "I'm going to be out on tour for a little bit during…” and they would get curious.
They'd find out who I was, and it would turn out they were big fans. Then I became their go-to guy. Once that's established, you work all the time. When you disrupt it, like I had to with the tour, it's hard to get it going again, because they've moved on to someone else as their go-to guy.
I shut it down for the summer of 2005, and started back up briefly when I got back, but it never reached the heights it had in 2003 to 2004.
During this whole time, Misty was my girl. We had been together for almost five years. August of 2000, when Traci and I were done, was the starting point for Misty and me.
But, by June of 2005, just before going out on tour, there were some serious problems.
All through 2005, my relationship with Misty wasn't getting any better, and we had such a tumultuous relationship to begin with!
She really wanted me to be something I couldn't be, and was very controlling. I was trying to make it work, but so many of the things that I had come to love were the things she had grown to hate. It drove her crazy being at Lake Havasu with my lake buddies, because we do what we do. We drink beer all day, have cocktails at night, and just have a really good time, running around with my crew and me.
While she would step out and enjoy herself, but she really didn't like the person I was when I drank liquor. She got really uptight about it. Same thing with Traci. Same thing with ... well, obviously, there's a pattern here.
When I'm on hard liquor, I'm a completely different person, which is why I don't drink it anymore. Captain and Coca-Cola is as ballsy as I'll allow myself these days. I'm not violent, or anything, but I become a different personality. It's fun, but girlfriends don't deal with it.
So, a few Coors Lights, a little red wine, and I can still socialize and not be a fucking kook. Ain't life grand?
In 2005, I started giving her some signs. "Babe, it's March. We've been in this house for three months, and we've only had sex twice.” I'm the kind of guy that needs to be intimate with the woman in my life. I can't sit stale, and just hope that's enough.
So, I told her, "This isn't going to work, if you can't be intimate with me.”
"Well, the more you behave like this, the more you act…” giving me this ultimatum. Like I was in the wrong.
Misty and I had split for about three months in 2004, so this was not a new development for us. We managed to pull the thing out of the fire, and she moved back home. But, things were never tight again.
I guess it's like pulling a carton of spoiled milk out of the fridge, taking a drink and going, "Fuck! That's spoiled! Here, I'll put it back. Maybe it'll be better tomorrow.”
Then Misty pulled some shit. She still won't admit to it, but it got back to me that she had been fucking around with some drug dealer type up in Hollywood. Everyone knew about the guy, and he's a total stain. She claimed that he had spiked her and her girlfriend's drink one night, and that she was tot
ally innocent. She stayed the night there, but nothing happened, she swore!
You know, once you've been mauled by an animal, it's hard to really trust any other animal not to maul you, as well. I tried to take Misty's word as truth. I didn't want to think that she would go off and fuck this character, but thanks to Traci, I know how women can be, and things certainly hadn't been intimate around our house for a while.
In my experience, if nothing is happening in the bedroom at home, then chances are, it's happening somewhere else.
So, when it got close to the tour, I told her, "Here's the deal. I'm going back out on the road in a month. If you don't start acting like we're together, and not just roommates, I'm telling you, it's a bad thing. Me, on the road, having been emotionally deserted? I'm going out single, Pi-RATT flag flying high!”
So, that's the way it happened. When I went on the road, I told her, "We're done. While I'm gone, find a place to move.”
Three months. But she wouldn't leave. She would not move out of the house while I was gone. I had to eventually get a friend of mine, Mike Smith, to go over and stay at the house. She couldn't stand Mike, and I knew that. He was my drinking buddy, so he was guilty by association, and I knew having him at the house was going to drive her crazy.
It worked!
Misty moved out the day before I got back from tour, and left the house completely trashed. I was really disappointed in her with that. We're friends these days, but that was a bad time for us. I'll always love her.
I love all of my ex's ... even if I hate them. That's just me.
While I was out on the road, I ran into a good friend of mine, who’s name we’ll call Misty2.
I met Misty2 in 2000 while we were out touring with Warrant and LA Guns, down in Austin, Texas. Misty2 and two of her friends were on Warrant's bus after the show. One of the friends was a guitar tech for Warrant. I was on the bus talking to Mike Fassano. These girls walked on, and I introduced myself as Bobby.
She has a smooth confidence about her, like she's been there before. She sort of laughs, and goes, “I know who you are, Bobby. My name is Misty.”
To make things even stranger, they almost had identical last names. At least I wouldn’t have to have worry about saying the wrong name at the wrong time or changing their luggage tag or Christmas card list.
At the time, I was with Misty, and I didn't mess around on her. Misty2 was married, and there was nothing going on between us. We were just good friends who hung out whenever we rolled through town. It was completely innocent.
In June of 2005, the tour got to Texas. Misty2 and I had been keeping in touch over the years. I knew she was going through a divorce, and she knew that Misty and I had split. But, she also knew Misty and I had split before, and then got back together, after a three months separation.
When I saw Misty2 in Dallas at the Smirnoff Amphitheater, I looked at her a little differently. She and a girlfriend picked me up at the hotel, and I was thinking, "Damn. She looks pretty fucking good right now.”
I knew that since she had broken up, things were a little different. We had always been a little flirty. Not even that, just really friendly, but we never crossed the relationship boundaries. Never spoke of it.
Now, the gloves were off, and it was a different world. So, that night after the show in Dallas, I kidnapped her and took her on the bus. I took her to the mall the next day and bought her some clothes, and she went to Oklahoma with me on tour. We did a couple of shows, and then I flew her home. She started coming out, and we were a couple pretty quick.
When I got home from the tour in 2005, I started doing my closing gig again. But, the whole thing with Misty was really fresh, and it was everywhere I looked! Meanwhile, Misty2 was spending more and more time in California, and I was spending more and more time in Texas. It was coming to a place where we had to decide who was going to move, because the relationship had gotten to that point.
I finally decided to sell my house.
I had been looking around in Houston, and discovered something absolutely amazing about Texas. You can buy a huge, mansion of a home for $300,000. I'm talking four thousand square feet on an acre of land. Not only could I sell my place in California and live in a mansion in Texas, buying it outright if I wanted to, I'd still have money enough to start a business.
So, that's what I did.
I moved out to Houston, and bought a forty two hundred square foot home in Cypress, Texas with a giant yard. I loved that place. Cypress is a suburb of Houston, so I was right in a major metropolitan area. It was time to open my recording studio!
I had already met all of Misty2's friends, just in the time I had been hanging out in Houston, and I loved them all. They are a great bunch of people, my Houston crew.
Texas isn't all fun and games, though.
I got another DUI down in Austin, Texas July 6, 2006. Texas cops on a DUI are brutal. Totally lame. It's like that movie, "Smokey and the Bandit", only they don't have Jackie Gleason's comedic timing.
Trust me, Texas cops have NO sense of humor.
I was just leaving the 6th street area, which is the premiere party area in the entire state, and was sitting at a red light in 3 lanes of traffic waiting to get on the freeway.
The cop rode by on a bike, looked at me, and then doubled back. I wasn't wearing my seatbelt, which, in Texas, is the driving equivalent of clubbing baby seals.
I told Misty2, "I'm going to jail, so listen. Here's the checkbook, find a lawyer.”
We'd been on Lake Travis all day, and out playing all night. I know that I shouldn't have been drinking and driving. I know that. But, in all my years of doing it, I've never had a fender bender. Nothing. I'm rock steady behind the wheel.
I've learned from it, to a degree. I just don't drink hard liquor anymore. They took me in, and it was all over the radio the next day. Nice. Really ugly. So, that was another ten grand in legal fees to make that go away.
This time, I didn't keep the weed. There wasn't any.
Somewhere along the way, I had met a guy named Gregg Gill. Gregg had a recording studio at his house, and he invited me over to look at all of it.
I had originally planned to do the studio at my house, because I had all of this expansive room. I had two full rooms set-aside for it. But, Gregg's stuff was pretty cool, and he seemed to really know his stuff. The down side, for him, was that he had a kid, and his place wasn't huge, so running a recording studio out of his home had become a bit of a drag. He had people there all the time, and it was kind of funky. He really wanted to get out and get his own place for the studio. So we started talking about putting something together.
Literally, within two weeks, we were on the drawing board. We had a place on Langfield Road, which was an industrial park there in Houston, and we were going to share the place with another friend named Jeff Diamont.
Jeff was starting an amplification company called Diamond Amps. It was going to be a real cheap date between what Jeff needed, and what we needed. It was a 5000 square foot space, and we had two full studios; Studio A & B. We got an architect to design the place, then had it all built within seven weeks.
We had a full studio, as well as the amp manufacturing facility. I decorated the place, which I have a flair for doing, and the business came out of the box really hot!
I started bringing bands in, and producing. Gregg was doing the mixing and engineering work, and Jeff would push his amps. It was a good combination. The property management company that ran the place gave us a buildup account of $25,000. We spent another $20,000 on top of that, and then I spent another $25,000 on equipment, in addition to the things Gregg already had.
We stocked up on stuff. There was a full, state-of-the-art Pro Tools set-up, and suddenly we were the hot new ticket in town.
Diamond Studios was born.
The first record we recorded at Diamond Studios was my Saints of the Underground record, which I produced, and sounds amazing. My production skills, which I was very proud of, hadn't s
lipped, and our studio sounded fantastic. I was bringing in bands that were digging it, and I was having a good time with it all. We were making good money, and I love Gregg like a brother. He and his wife, Alison and his child, Stone, were like family to me.
We opened doors in May of 2006. That's how quickly this all went. We had a great summer that year. But, in fairly short order, I started getting this vibe from Gregg. It wasn't really envy, at least I don't think, but it certainly had a dissension to it that I couldn't understand.
We were using my name to attract business, and I was getting paid well to produce records. Maybe that's what happened. Maybe that served as the root of jealousy that started driving the wedge in. At the time, I just chalked it up as growing pains.
I was making between $1500 and $3000 per song to produce. Then, on top of that, I was negotiating the rental fees for the studio, which he and I would split. Gregg might have seen that as double dipping, though he never uttered those words. But, he started getting really short tempered and such. I started feeling really weird when we were working together. I was producing and calling the shots. He was doing the engineer work. There were moments when I would wind up doing some of the writing for these bands; writing parts, and bringing out parts.
Gregg is a great engineer, and is really good to work with. He would sometimes contribute good ideas to the production, as well. The artists really liked him, and like working with him. It was shaping up to be a win / win deal for everyone.
Provided we could work our way past the dissension I was picking up from Gregg.
Act III: The Resurrection
35
Round And Round: The RATTs Come Home
"Got one for the money, Two for the show, Three for my honey and four to let you know that I...Let The Music Do The Talking" - Aerosmith "Let The Music Do The Talking”
In late 2006, the RATT reunion started to become a serious consideration.
Tales Of A RATT Page 30